She was a quick study, this one, and it impressed him. She was emotional, and somehow managed to control those emotions - an odd combination, one he wished to study further.

Slap the water. Show me how you move, he instructed, and demonstrated, slamming a hoof into the still surface and leaving behind a small crater in the shallow mud. He hadn't even appeared to try - and had moved nothing more than his leg.

First, he had to see what he was working with physically. Then they could start adding skill to whatever power she held.

She watched as he slammed his hoof down and considered doing it the way he did. But Caustic needed to see how she moved. He already knew how he moved, so copying him would be counter productive. She reached up as high as she could and slapped the water with her claw spread, causing a giant splash and her claw to start stinging slightly. She began shaking the water off her foreleg, looking back at Caustic to hear his next instructions.

He shook his head slightly, approving of her power but recognizing that her technique needed some work. Their first lesson, then, would be two-fold.

You move too much, he told her, and nodded to the small hole his hoof had made as he added and you don't follow through with the power.

Bone did not give easily; it had layers of flesh to help it resist. There would be more than water in her way, and although she might aim a strike at a leg it would be the most effective if she followed through to the bone.

Lift, he told her, raising his leg and pausing long enough for her to see that he had barely lifted it higher than his average step, use only your muscle. Not speed, not height. Focus on the blow, not the target.

His words reminded her of an observation she had made. When she would try to bend a tree, she would hit it hard to make it go over, while everyone else would push on it until it obeyed. You don't have to put all the force in it in one quick blast. She picked up her claw, curled it into something resembling a hoof, and pushed! It wasn't a necessarily fast strike, but it left a decent dent in the mud. She quickly looked over to Caustic because she got the feeling she wasn't doing this right.

Not quite right, he said without judgement or, as it turned out, any true inflection at all. but still a good start. Repeat it, but add speed. Just a little. Faster. Build the speed, and the force, and adjust the strike as you need with each one. Build up to it.

He hated using so many words, but he would rather over-explain and grant that she understood than to keep with his clipped and closed off manner of speaking. It was an effort on his part, a kind of payment for the effort she'd put forth herself that day. She'd honestly impressed him, first reaching out to repair their last encounter and then accepting his instructions without fanfare. The strangeling had proven to be quite adaptable thus far; he had a feeling that he could eventually be proud of her as a pupil.

He still had to council himself to patience, remembering that the mind would sooth and calm with the repetition of the forms for fighting. Once she was stable, once she had something to root her, she would be a creature he would trust himself to; and he didn't trust himself to anyone. None save his bonded, and even she had been forced to earn it.

The cub just needed to see the strength inside her; to find that, he had to build her strength outside, first.